jfurr wrote:I'm just glad I didn't sign up for some long term GolfTec instructional package

Why is that? GolfTec is only related to Golfsmith in renting space from their big stores. There are many standalone GolfTec locations too, and GolfTec is not in any financial trouble like Golfsmith is/was. For those Golfsmith stores that are closing that used to have a GolfTec studio inside, GolfTec is going to relocate them or continue renting the space from the new owners (Dick's Sporting Goods).

Oh, I didn't know they were moving over to Dick's for sharing space... what I meant was it would have been bad to have gotten into it then loose the place etc.

I knew they had stand alone locations but the only one here was in the GS store.

I just found out about the midtown manhattan Golfsmith liquidating its assets starting last month. Dang, guess I missed the opportunity to go peck at the corpse and bones of a once-great golf retailer. I think they still might be open, but it's gotta be an ugly scene at this point and I am not going all the way up into the 50s just to browse through a few left-handed golf gloves and square drivers and size XXXL sweaters or whatever.

So i just picked up an Arccos Golf system (early xmas gift i purchased myself from my wife). I used it for the first time this weekend and it's impressive. If you're a stat junkie like me, then you'd like this. The individual stats you get per club per hole are ridiculous. Although, it was disconcerting to see how many drives were apparently in the 220's yesterday. Luckily i had a handful in the 270's and one cart path aided 290 so the average fell more into the 260 range. Still, it's pretty cool to see.

Last edited by jattruia on Mon Dec 19, 2016 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

Anyone compare Arccos, GameGolf and the product offered by SkyGolf? If so, a few questions:

1. Do you need a smart phone with all of them?
2. Do they all have a sensor that goes into the club grip?
3. Do they all require one to "tap" or otherwise indicate a shot taken or can it figure it out by your body motion (or lack of motion)
4. Do you need to go in and edit anything (penalties, distance of putts, club used, etc...)

bkuehn1952 wrote:Anyone compare Arccos, GameGolf and the product offered by SkyGolf? If so, a few questions:

1. Do you need a smart phone with all of them?
2. Do they all have a sensor that goes into the club grip?
3. Do they all require one to "tap" or otherwise indicate a shot taken or can it figure it out by your body motion (or lack of motion)
4. Do you need to go in and edit anything (penalties, distance of putts, club used, etc...)

I read comparisons between Arccos and Game Golf which is why i went with Arccos. Notes below regarding Arccos.

1. You DO need a smartphone for this one, and it needs to be in your pocket when playing (this was my biggest concern). However, it caused no issue and i didn't even notice it while playing.
2. Sensor goes into the grip (similar to Game Golf). They were VERY easy to pair to each club.
3. No need to tap (unlike Game Golf). When they are upside down, they are in 'sleep' mode, so they 'wake up' when you get your club ready. Practice swings are not recorded as they ignore additional shots within 15 yds of the spot, so it really just tracks the last swing you make from that area.
4. I edited 3 things post round. It missed ONE putt, one drive i wanted to count as fairway since it was basically on the fringe of the green on a par 4, and i added a penalty (this was done during the round). Other than that everything was tracked seamlessly.

Thanks JA. The "tapping" seems like it would be a problem unless one were able to build it into one's post shot routine (which I don't typically have except to start swearing and then retrieve the divot or sand the divot hole).

bkuehn1952 wrote:Anyone compare Arccos, GameGolf and the product offered by SkyGolf? If so, a few questions:

1. Do you need a smart phone with all of them?
2. Do they all have a sensor that goes into the club grip?
3. Do they all require one to "tap" or otherwise indicate a shot taken or can it figure it out by your body motion (or lack of motion)
4. Do you need to go in and edit anything (penalties, distance of putts, club used, etc...)

So I'll give you the GameGolf answers. Note I have GG Classic.

1) No, unless you want GameGolf live, which is their newest one and most comparable to Arccos. Note: GameGolf classic is USGA conforming and can be used in tournaments. GameGolf live and to my understanding Arccos are not allowed by the USGA. This is the reason I went with GameGolf classic.
2) Yes, its smaller than the Arccos sensor, and completely un-noticeable. The downside to it being more streamline is it can be a small pain to install/uninstall. It might take a pair of pliers (but it won't give you a black eye).
3) Yes and yes. It works better if you "tap" it. But it can determine a shot based on body motion (although this doesn't work well with putts). Also not tapping it requires a lot of work post round to edit. Tapping it becomes part of your pre-shot routine pretty quickly. Actually when I played 4 holes last tuesday with out GG I noticed myself still tapping the club to my hip.
It will record a shot for 1 swing every 30 seconds, to avoid recording practice swings. So if you tap it, take a couple practice swings then hit the ball it records 1 swing. Downside if you have a long wait and are trying to stay loose it may record extra swings that you'll need to delete post round.
4) Yes, the common things I edit are: Practice swings that are more than 30 seconds away from my normal swing. Putts being on the green or fringe. Penalties. Occasionally putt distance as there is no good way to record the pin placement. Never had to edit club used unless I forgot to tap it. Edit tee boxes I played. Post round editing usually takes me 5-10 min (not long enough to piss off my wife if I come straight home from the course and edit the data).

Pluses:
-USGA conforming and I can use it in tournaments (GG Classic).
-Cheaper (if you go with GG Classic).
-Tags are more streamline.
-No live data (I'm not wasting time on my phone during the round). To me this is a plus but might be a minus for others.
-Customer Service has always been great.

Minuses:
-No way to "tag" pin placement. The device has a gyroscope in it, so if you reach down to get your ball out of the hole it uses that bending over to determine pin placement. But then if you later reach down to pick up the flag stick, a towel, or an extra club it occasionally screws up the pin location.
-Strokes gained stat section wont allow you to drill in for more detail (although I've heard they are working on this, maybe in the spring release).
-Some courses aren't mapped that well. Example hole #2 on my home course, the "fairway" per GG map is about 30 yards left of the actual FW (and in the trees). So if I hit a drive in the FW it will show my drive as being 30 yards right of center. Personally I don't care too much, but it would be nice if they let you have a FW yes or no toggle like they have for greens. I've only seen this issue on 2 holes, and I asked the pro-shop and they said they re-routed those 2 holes about 3 years ago. So its probably just stale data (I've never emailed them about getting it re-mapped).
-The belt clip has some room for improvement. I do re-adjust it every hole or 2 as I feel like it could fall off (it never has). It just doesn't feel super secure (this may be a mental issue for me though). But it has never bothered me during a swing.

Minuses for other people:
-device "beeps" when you tag a club. To me I barely hear it, and have never had a playing partner notice it (or say anything about it). So I don't care.

Oh re: tap or no tap. For GG if it records a swing that you don't tap it will let you know when doing post round editing.

It does require you to look at each of your swings recorded w/o tapping, before allowing you to "sign" your round. This is to make sure you don't wind up with some practice swings counting towards your normal swing.

In the editing page, it also differentiates between tapped and non-tapped swings to make it easy to identify non-tapped swings. It will also highlight the holes that have "non-tapped, non-reviewed" swings so you can quickly identify where you might have an issue.

When i did my research, Arccos was typically coming up as the better option, although pricier than GG. I really didn't like the idea of the belt thing and the tapping, and really thought the stats with Arccos were awesome. THEN, they had a $50 off deal for the original Arccos system (they have a brand new one out), so $149 was a no-brainer.

Jason Fish gave a pretty informative response. I'll add at few extra things:

-Only consider Arccos if you have an iPhone. I've read that the Android version is still new and having a lot of issues. I've also read that the new version ' Arccos 360' is having a lot of technical issues. I've heard good things about the original version (again, paired with an iPhone).

-There are other options in the shot tracking market. Shotscope is a newer product, developed in Scotland, and uses a screenless wristwatch receiver that senses the swing automatically(via a gyroscope in the watch) and then reads the tag (similar to Game Golf's) in the butt of the club. You don't have to tag your shots. The only interaction is you 'tag' the flag location when you fish your ball out of the cup, by pressing a single button on the watch (that correlates to the total # of putts taken). This provides more accurate putting data than the other shot trackers (unless you were to manually position the flag in the Game Golf/Arccos app).

+ automatic shot tracking (like Arccos). Although you do 'tag' the hole
+ don't need to have a smart phone
+ provides the most accurate putting stats of any current shot tracker
+ can upload directly to PC from the watch, or via Bluetooth to a smartphone post-round
+ anecdotally, seems to have much more reliable shot tracking than the other 'tagless' system (Arccos). That is, there's far less incidence of
false strokes
+ the 'tags' on the clubs are black and are the smallest of any of the systems

- doesn't give you GPS distances during your round
- new product, so the course database is still being developed
- no social features
- uses it's own proprietary 'stats' system (shots to finish, instead of strokes gained)

Note that with all of the shot tracking systems, there is some post-round editing involved, generally to add penalties and indicate sand shots.

I currently use Golfpad tags, which is basically the same as Game Golf. That is, you have to tag your shots.

Bought my DBM Forged with KBS Tour 105s today. Along with Pure grips & a matching Pure grip for my putter.
The shafts are backordered. Because of that I won't see everything until late-March/early-April.